Step by Step to Stand-Up Comedy

Step by Step to Stand-Up Comedy, written by Greg Dean, is a comprehensive guide for people who are funny, want to be funnier, or have dreams of being a stand-up comedian. This first-of-its-kind audiobook demystifies the craft of comedy by breaking it down to the fundamental skills used by professional funny people. Dean lays out these skills in simple-to-understand lessons that are easy to practice and master.

Do You Talk Funny?: 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker

Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change.

In what doesn't sound like the best plan ever, David decided to overcome his fears by pretending to be a comedian called "Irish Dave" for one full year, crashing as many comedy clubs, festivals, and shows as possible.

Connect Using Humor and Story: How I Got 18 Laughs 3 Applauses in a 7 Minute Persuasive Speech

Multiple award-winning speaker Ramakrishna Reddy presents the secrets, tools, and devices that helped him create 18 laughs and three applauses in a seven-minute persuasive speech in his fifth book Connect with Humor and Story. This is not theory. It's absolute content based on his research, his experience, and his testing.

Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale

Despite all the high-tech tools available to salespeople, the most personal method still works best. Storytelling packs the emotional punch to turn routine presentations into productive relationships. It explains products or services in ways that resonate; it connects people and creates momentum. Stories speak to the part of the brain where decisions are made. Paul Smith, author of the acclaimed Lead with a Story, shifts his best-selling formula to the sales arena.

Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life

Every day there are moments when you must persuade, inform, and motivate others effectively. Each of those moments requires you, in some way, to play a role, to heighten the impact of your words, and to manage your emotions and nerves. Every interaction is a performance, whether you're speaking up in a meeting, pitching a client, or walking into a job interview.

Hitting Your Funny Bone: Writing Stand-Up Comedy, and Other Things That Make You Swear

This step-by-step comedy writer's guide is for the budding stand-up comedian to develop fresh original material and craft it into great performance. Become clear on what your comedy special powers are. Edit and secretly test your material. Craft your set into a streamlined performance, and become a better comic out of the gate! Now you can get rid of your writer's block!

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy, stirring excitement, spreading knowledge, and promoting a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience's worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written form.

Improve Your Conversations teaches you how to use the ingenious framework from improv comedy and apply it directly to your everyday social interactions and conversations...and can't we learn something from the greatest improv comedians in the world, like Tina Fey and Will Ferrell? Improv comedy and memorable conversations have almost everything in common, from their premise to what makes them great to their end goals.

Transformational Speaking: If You Want to Change the World, Tell a Better Story

While most programs on public speaking focus on a polished presentation and overcoming fear, Larsen's holistic blend of spirit and logic goes far beyond the standard format, making Transformational Speaking a must listen for even the most seasoned speechmakers. With her uniquely inspirational approach, Larsen reaches out to those who want to make a genuine difference in our world by changing minds through changing hearts.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say yes - and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His 35 years of rigorous, evidence-based research, along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior, has resulted in this highly acclaimed book. You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader - and how to defend yourself against them.

Long Story Short: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need

Did you ever wish you could tell a story that leaves others spellbound? Storytelling teacher and champion Margot Leitman will show you how! With a fun, irreverent, and infographic approach, this guide breaks a story into concrete components with ways to improve content, structure, emotional impact, and delivery through personal anecdotes, relatable examples, and practical exercises.

Speak: So Your Audience Will Listen: 7 Steps to Confident and Successful Public Speaking

In this audiobook, we will look at all aspects of spoken communication, from structure right through to delivery. We will learn how to have a conversation with our audience - to be ourselves - so that we connect with them every time we speak. In seven simple steps, you can learn to be a confident and successful public speaker. There are specific exercises at the end of every section for you to practice.

Jason R. Legge says:"Great book! I used it to calm myself down before a presentation"

Conversation Tactics, Book 3 focuses on the subtle and nuanced tactics that will allow you to command any social situation. I'll shine a light onto the secrets of those that can own a room, always have a witty reply, and are never caught without just the right thing to say. I want this book to arm you with definitive tactics, maneuvers, and replies to whatever comes your way in a conversation.

The Millionaire Messenger: Make a Difference and a Fortune Sharing Your Advice

In The Millionaire Messenger, Brendon Burchard pulls back the curtains on the once-secretive "expert industry" and shows how to become an influential and highly paid advice expert through websites, books, speeches, seminars, coaching, consulting, and online programs. Blessed to receive life's golden ticket - a second chance - after surviving a dramatic car accident, Burchard has dedicated his life to helping others find their voice, live more fully, and follow their dreams. By following his 10-step program, average, ordinary people can learn to become experts in anything they choose.

Louder Than Words: Harness the Power of Your Authentic Voice

There has never been a better time to build an audience around your idea or product. But with so many people and companies clamoring for attention, it's also more challenging than ever to do work that deeply resonates with the marketplace and creates true and lasting impact.

The Science of Likability: Charm, Wit, Humor, and the 16 Studies That Show You How to Master Them

Are you interested in 100 percent scientific and proven ways to make friends quickly, negotiate anything you want, turn enemies into friends, gain trust, and just be flat-out likable? How about step-by-step, methodical, literally foolproof approaches to make people want you around more? In The Science of Likability, that's exactly what you'll get. I've taken 16 of the most influential, famous, and effective psychological studies and broken them down to see exactly how you can use their findings to your advantage.

How to Write Selling Humor

Humor is ignored and misunderstood in writing. But learning to use humor will improve your writing and your bottom line. These two workshops are from experts who can help you ride the comedy wave to successful humor writing.

Stand and Deliver: The Dale Carnegie Method to Public Speaking

Stand and Deliver gives you everything you need to know to become an incredibly poised, polished, masterful communicator. Someone who can hold an audience of one, 10, or 1,000 in the palm of your hand, from the first word you speak to them until the last.

Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire

Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success.

Starting Stand-up Comedy!.: Articles and Interviews with Comedians about Being a Comedian.

This book offers a variety of articles and interviews regarding the business of stand-up comedy. It especially focuses on the being new to the business, although the insights provided can benefit even an experienced comic.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

In this must-listen book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, students, and businesspeople - both seasoned and new - that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called "grit". Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, MacArthur "genius" Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly a guarantor of success.

The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny

Dr. Peter McGraw, founder of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, teamed up with journalist Joel Warner on a far-reaching search for the secret behind humor. Their journey spanned the globe, from New York to Japan, from Palestine to the Amazon. Meanwhile, the duo conducted their own humor experiments along the way-to wince-worthy, hilarious, and illuminating results.

Dubito Ergo Sum says:"Real research and a scientific theory of humor!"

Improv for Actors

In this step-by-step guide, an actor and improvisational teacher brings his tested methods to the page to show how actors can take risks and gain spontaneity in all genres of scripted theater. Through 28 lessons - each of which includes warm-ups, points of concentration, and improvisation exercises - Improv for Actors provides insights into thinking and reacting with fluidity, exploring a character’s social status, using the voice and body as effective tools of storytelling, and more.

Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up

In an irresistible invitation to lighten up, look around, and live an unscripted life, a Stanford University professor and master of the art of improvisation explains how to adopt the attitudes and techniques used by generations of musicians and actors. These secrets are currently being taught to entrepreneurs, engineers, and first responders in a crisis as well as housewives and Alzheimer caregivers. Let's face it: Life is something we all make up as we go along.

Publisher's Summary

A step-by-step handbook that teaches listeners to find the extraordinary stories tucked deep within them to make a difference in the lives of others - and to get paid - as a motivational speaker, The Message of You begins with a simple belief - that your greatest speech already exists and that it has already been delivered in front of a live audience masterfully and powerfully by you. Best-selling author and international comic, Judy Carter sets out to prove that The Message of You is in the advice you give to your friends; in the lessons you teach your children; in the stories you tell your family. It's expressed through the volunteer work you do, the way you run your business, the way you turned your messes into successes. The Message of You is a distillation of all of your experiences, both personal and professional, that form the narrative meaning of your life. A meaning that you can develop into a well-written, funny speech to inspire audiences, enhance your current profession, and launch a successful money making career as a professional speaker.

In part one of the book, Judy leads you through a series of in-depth exercises meant to mine your personal and professional experiences for stories that establish your qualifications, your problem/solutions, your action steps, and your methodology. In part two, Judy has created a six-step structure for writing an entertaining and informative speech, guiding you through each step in detail.

But the real bonus of The Message of You is that Judy is a comic. Her "Comedy Pass" chapter takes you through simple but effective comedy writing techniques that will transform even a flat PowerPoint snoozer into a knee-slapping showstopper of a keynote. Once your speech is well-written and funny, Judy takes you through part three, teaching you how to take your message to the masses with inexpensive but essential marketing tips. The Message of You offers an accessible approach, big picture guidance, and nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of sound advice.

Judy has been a comedy and speaking coach for over 20 years. She's a firm believer that how you present your ideas is just as important as the ideas themselves. She knows that humor and strong content are the missing ingredients in most speeches and her book, The Message of You, helps you discover both your message and your comedic voice by taking you through the same process she uses to coach her private clients.

This book is extremely helpful with both theory and practical instruction. Judy's humor practices what she preaches and keeps the book moving along. This has been one of the most helpful books I've downloaded from Audible.

What made the experience of listening to The Message of You the most enjoyable?

I was simply blown away by the amount of great information that Judy provides, even in the first chapter!

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Message of You?

As an aspiring speaker Judy inspired me to think deeper into my life's experiences to find the right material for my presentation.

What’s an idea from the book that you will remember?

So many, but the idea that anybody can be funny with the right bit of information and timing.Also to get information on the group you will be presenting to in advance of your presentation, like a secret weapon.

Any additional comments?

I highly recommend this book to anyone planning on writing or giving any type of presentations. I will surely be listening to this again and again.

Where does The Message of You rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top notch!

What about Judy Carter’s performance did you like?

She is clear with simple steps to follow and accountability. She thinks of all the things that could go wrong and has solutions to avoid each one. Judy is funny and shares great examples. Her many years of experience helping people shines through.

Loved this!Makes total sense and is a must for anyone who wants to make speaking meaningful Thanks Judy!Ps - whoever said judy has a whining voice clearly does not appreciate an enthusiastic, authentic natural tone.

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